Theories of Political Behaviour

Abstract

This chapter will review some of the theories about political behaviour which have been derived from public choice’s distinctive methodology. We will consider the role of actors in the political process: voters, parties, interest groups, bureaucrats, politicians. This review leads naturally on to a central subject of public choice: the demand and supply of public goods. The chapter’s conclusions deal with the validity of these theories — how true are they and do they justify their assumptions? As we are dealing with a large body of work the coverage is necessarily selective and condensed, with a stress on those theories with strong political implications.